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Ever get angry at club tourists? Learn to love them, for all our sakes.

Words: Duncan Dick
Illustration: Graham Samuels

“Oh, it’s rubbish, it’s full of tourists.” You’ll hear this refrain about many of the world’s most famous clubs. In this context, ‘tourist’ doesn’t mean overweight families who carry their money round their necks or in ‘fanny packs’, drive you into epilepsy taking photos of the bass bins, clog up the cloakroom queue as they work out the exchange rate (yes, it is £2. I know!) or walk four abreast through the dancefloor with their jackets on and backpacks frontwise in case anyone steals their Lonely Planet guide and pack of picture postcards. In this instance it means interloper. New person.

Of course it’s normal to get annoyed when your special secret place becomes common knowledge. More people coming there because they’ve heard it’s good? How dare they! Bastards. But that kind of attitude only holds things back. It wasn’t until drum ’n’ bass artists wrested control back from the inward looking ‘purists’ that
it became so exciting again. Wonder why dance music has never taken off in the US? Go on t’internet and read the comments under an article about a US artist or promoter starting to get some attention: the words ‘fake’ and ‘scene jumper’ will loom large amid the usual keyboard hardman vitriol. ‘We were here first!’ is the message. Bollocks. Anyone who gets angry at new faces at their favourite night needs to have a word with themselves.

And when the put-downs do actually refer to foreign visitors, it’s worth remembering that if that trip to Berlin ever actually comes off, you’ll be in the same boat. When the locals sneer at you for turning up drunk at Panoramabar and being sent away, ending up partied out by 4am and missing all the best DJs or busted on the U-bahn for not validating your ticket, remember that feeling next time you’re a host on your own stomping ground.

Maybe I’m biased. I’m not from London, Edinburgh or the Lake District, and I still find tourists quite exciting. In my home town they were about as common as meteorites made of Jaffa Cakes. Anyone asking directions in a foreign accent risked being smothered in contradictory advice, the whole street joining in, a little hysterical that anyone would consider Glasgow worth visiting. At least during the day. At night, some great clubs mean it’s an ideal destination, despite the traditional 3am kebab shop/taxi queue ultraviolence.

In fact, as this country attempts to claw its way out of recession, why don’t we divert some money from propping up the failed finance industry supercasino and use it to put club tourism at the centre of recovery? Forget regal parasites and dusty old museums: let’s sell this country on its nightlife. Imagine it: no more traffic jams at Stonehenge as day-trippers instead head for the Castle Morton memorial park and cultural centre. Stratford Upon Avon becomes ‘Home of Global Gathering’ rather than ‘Birthplace of Shakespeare’. Pilgrims from around the world queue to have their picture taken on the exact spot on the Renfrew Ferry where Daft Punk played their first ever UK gig. An open-top bus tour of picturesque Croydon could chart the evolution of dubstep, while as London gay mecca Heaven’s clientele exits, perspiring at dawn, they’re met by a crowd of camera- toting sightseers keen to explore the location where Fabio and Groove’s Rage night pioneered drum ’n’ bass.

If the tips are good, I’m quite happy to lead groups of sightseers through our nation’s nitespots, holding up a red umbrella as I bullshit them about areas of cultural interest: “And over here we have the first ever disco ball, invented by Paul Oakenfold in 1957”; “If you’ll look to your left you’ll see a typical British raver of the student type, trying to impress a girl of the same species. No, don’t give him money, you’ll never get rid of him…”

Putting nightlife at the centre of our national identity would also turn the tables on the formidable forces aligned against the party people. How could the cops shut down a party if it’s sponsored by the tourist board, or local residents kick up a fuss about noise when said racket is the very economic lifeblood of the country? After all, business is business, motherfuckers!